VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam Multimedia Corporation has started the race to introduce the country’s first broadcasting television service on mobile, encouraging other television broadcasting organisations to follow its lead.

A small proportion of the population will be able to afford TV on mobile devices

However, the company will not be able start its planned commercial service in Danang, Hanoi, Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh City and Quang Ninh province until December due to a lack of handheld DVB-H devices able to receive the technology. Once up and running, Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) will be the world’s first provider of open digital video broadcasting handheld technology. The other potential provider using the technology is based in Italy, currently running trials of the service in Milan.

Nokia’s official distributor in Vietnam, FPT Distribution, plans to import the Nokia Nseries DVB-H-enabled multimedia device, Nokia N92, next week to help kick-start the service.

The VTC service for GSM mobile subscribers covers eight television channels comprising four VTC channels, one VTV and three foreign channels including BBC, MTV and Fashion TV, as well as four audio channels with coded content management software. Of these, the provider offers a video on demand channels on a pay-per-view basis.

To start the service customers will have to pay a VND500,000 connection fee and VND90,000 monthly subscription fee for day and night viewing, or buy a pre-paid card worth VND100,000, VND300,000 and VND500,000.

Le Doan Quan, director of VTC affiliate VTC Mobile Television company, said the company will have to overcome the hurdle of the terminal devices’ high price to attract customers. The Nokia N92 will be priced at VND12 million ($750), a cost that only 250,000 Vietnamese residents will be able to afford next year.
He said the company will sign up 100,000 customers next year, and expects the service will become popular among local residents once the handheld price drops to around VND3 million in the next two years. The second phase of VTC Mobile Television’s plan will expand the service’s coverage to eight provinces.

VTC’s television service on mobile will focus only on GSM subscribers who account for around 90 per cent of the country’s total number of subscribers. Meanwhile, Vietnam Television (VTV) is also chasing a similar service proposal for CDMA accounts with the support of SLD, a consortium of four Korean companies, a partner in running Vietnam’s first CDMA S-Fone network.

Nguyen Van Phuong, head of the International Cooperation Department under VTV, said the organisation has sent a request to the Ministry of Post and Telematics for a frequency spectrum to pilot the service based on digital mobile broadcasting, which is being used in Korea and Japan and piloted in China.

“We will have to ask the ministry again next year because the MPT does not want any frequency problems during APEC meetings,” said Phuong.

VTV, however, has yet to write a specific proposal for the service, but is expecting to lure a number of people as the price of the service and handsets will be lower.

S-Fone has also offered a video on demand value added service, enabling account holders to view television programmes on mobile with a handset which costs around VND6 million. However, the service cost is higher due to telephone billing for television viewing.

(Source: VIR)